the irrational was natural, forced upon us the lonely.

Disclaimer: This isn’t a thorough analysis or doesn’t come close to an analysis of the “COME BACK HOME” MV at all! Just a compilation of things I noticed and thought were cool, so it’ll be a little bit of this and that (but I hope not too disorganized to follow). Also, I’m not familiar with Seo Taiji, so I’m reading into this MV as it is, and have only watched Seo Taiji’s 15th Anniversary MV a couple of times. In other words, I’ve mostly decontextualized the MV during the observation process except towards the end when I shift my focus to BTS~

My overall thought on the book (aka my review on Goodreads): Reading Demian was surprisingly taxing despite the length, the simple plot, and relatively straightforward philosophy. I had to stop for a bit after each chapter, and could only do two chapters in one sitting, because it’s such an emotionally, intellectually loaded text that I physically couldn’t keep on reading it for an extended period of time. Sometimes I dreaded returning to the book out of sheer fear of asphyxiation. Nevertheless, I persisted, managed to finish it, and am glad that I did. It’s sort of your regular coming-of-age story, with an ordinary protagonist who struggles to be himself amidst a world that tries to mold him out of a predetermined figure of a “respectable participant of society” (read: capitalism), but the package also comes with a twist. An intricate, philosophical, poetic exploration of developmental psychology, with an emphasis on adolescence and discovering and maintaining the self, Demian tries to reach the most profound root of this inner conflict, and has perhaps succeeded in transcribing the inner war many young people face when growing up, to the point where it got too real, too raw at times I had to put down the book. I’ve never suffered in such a way while reading a book before, but I guess it’s all good, since I truly enjoyed Demian.

(somewhat) More detailed commentary below (expect spoilers) (also I wrote a major part of this at 12am so there might be places of vague or downright nonsensical language):Read More »

I wanted to submit this somewhere, a magazine, a writing competition, anything at all, for, I don’t know, maybe just the heck of it. But caged birds don’t sing exceeds the word limit for all of the writing contests I bookmarked, so I gave up and decided to publish it anyway. This is, as my lovely martini has articulated with much more eloquence than I could, “an experimental, poetic statement about identity and relationships,” and I hope whoever happens to stumble across this enjoys it. It is indeed wildly experimental, but I’m very proud of it. (also please excuse if there’s any formatting error/words that should be italicized/bolded/etc. sometimes WordPress messes that up!)

Again, thank you BTS for being such a spectacular source of inspiration, and martini for believing in me, and in this piece. Without you, this wouldn’t have been possible.

Summary: Mars looks up to her brother, Vivi, admires his composure, wants to spread her wings just like him and live. Vivi looks after his sister, Mars, adores her softness, wants to spread his wings around her and protect. They love each other to the point of struggling to love themselves.Read More »

This is the longest piece I’ve ever written so far, including both original works and fanfiction, and I’m just so proud of myself for finishing the thing since I always have trouble finishing anything at all. Ten thousand words! It’s not a huge number or anything, but I’m pretty sure the longest story I’ve written so far before this one is only 3k or 4k words. Of course I don’t expect this to be the best short story ever. I still lack a lot of skills and practice. The plot for trance can definitely be elaborated into a full-fledged novella, but all in all, I hope I did at least a mediocre job and was able to execute the plot somewhat decently with a tolerable pace in this 10k-word short story.

Thank you BTS for being an endless source of inspiration, and martini for supporting me along the way. Without you, this work wouldn’t have been possible.

Summary: Namin has been going on long train trips with his two best friends because for some reason, that is the only time he can meet them.

A story I wrote for a class a while ago. I’m kind of not very satisfied with it (when is a writer ever satisfied with their work, anyway), the writing style, the character development, and especially how I executed the plot, but I also think it’s bigger than the page limit – I wanted to pack too much in there. I should really try to make smaller stories; they’re slightly easier to work with when I have a schedule as tight as a college schedule and more manageable for proofreading, and I’ll learn to avoid lengthy prose and unnecessary details. But anyhow, here it is.

Summary: Even though Hikaru no longer grieves for Sai, the guilt still lurks under his skin. After he wins the Honinbou title and has a party for it, Hikaru finds himself on an empty subway. Facing him is Sai.

Note: The ending is, to me, a bit lacking (this might not be the best word but I don’t know how to describe it), since even though Hikaru is no longer upset about Sai, I still feel like there’s something unresolved within him because Sai left without a word and Hikaru will live on carrying that vague guilt of not letting Sai play enough/being the reason why Sai disappears. The way he plays go because Sai’s in there and gets fired up from an indirect insult to Sai gives me the vibe that the main reason Hikaru hangs onto go/gives his best playing go is because he can find Sai in it. Which is amazing and beautiful and I will never deny the tremendous influence Sai had on him, but I’d like to see Hikaru live and play go for himself more. So here’s my take on the resolution to that.